


Pride

by AGlassRoseNeverFades



Series: Our Sins [7]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: And I have no idea how that happened, But it's more like equal amounts of both or quite possibly the opposite instead, Gen, I swear there were supposed to be more Hannigram feels than Brownham feels in this one, Jack and Will are my brOTP with Bev out of the picture apparently, Like WTF Matty, Love Triangle, M/M, Manipulation, Mind Games, You're not even IN this one and you still manage to steal the show you utter brat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 10:52:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1742135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will starts putting his plans into motion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, I'm sorry this took me so long to update, my dears. I was supposed to be done days ago but I've been manfully fighting off a bad cold instead (read: whining like a giant wuss about my fever and sore throat and napping all day). Now that I'm better, hopefully my updates will start picking up in pace again. ^_^

It’s frightfully easy to jump right back in with all the niceties, the polite smiles and poisoned words between them, like nothing has changed.

But it _has_ changed. Already Lecter is allowing Will to see far more deeply than ever before, hairline cracks in the mask for his favorite ex-profiler to peek through. And peek through he does, seeing all too clearly even as the psychiatrist gives the expected non-answers and claims of innocence against Will’s spoken and implied accusations. The man’s eyes and faint smiles speak volumes that his words do not, of dark pleasure and self-satisfaction that his pretty little toy is no longer broken, now polished and shining like new, eager at last to finally play along.

The cocky bastard thinks he’s all but won already. _This will be your undoing,_ Will decides, as he smiles back and indulges Lecter’s probing questions with answers both coy and blunt, having no taste for these games but abiding by the doctor’s rules all the same. For now. Draws his answer out, a long, half-whispered _yes_ when Lecter asks if he still fantasizes about killing him.

“With my hands,” he answers when Lecter asks him how. _Intimate._ He sees the way Lecter’s eyes darken, his pupils dilating as he imagines the moment. It would feel more like a victory if Will didn’t know his own eyes are probably just as dark as he pictures it as well.

“Discovered a truth about myself when I tried to have you killed,” he says, careful not to mention _that name,_ not to even acknowledge _the other_ as anything more than a puppet on a string, a means to an end, discarded and forgotten in the dark now that Will no longer has a use for him. _Create a reality in which nothing exists but you and the fish._

He will never admit to himself that for just a second, he’s worried he may be painting another target on the man’s back by bringing it up at all, anxiety twisting like a cold knife through his gut, eyes searching frantically for signs of Lecter’s displeasure or irritation at the memory, hopefully without appearing to do so. Relief when it doesn’t show, Lecter instead taking the bait to discuss his favorite subject—Will and his _glorious becoming._

“That doing bad things to bad people makes you feel good,” Lecter says, and Will doesn’t think about how little he’s acting or hiding from himself anymore as he answers for a second time, _“Yes.”_

*

He will think about it later on the way to save poor confused, addled Peter Bernardone—will think also about that conversation with Jack a few mornings ago on the ice, when Jack had been content to let it go with nothing more than metaphors about trout and hooking a predator when it’s not hungry.

It was Will who had pushed the talk to a more direct and deliberate end, needing to be _sure_ the man understood fully before they left the frozen lake and dropped back into their respective roles.

“Jack,” he had said, “for this to work, I’m gonna have to skirt a lot of lines, and probably outright cross a few of them.”

Jack had only nodded. “Of course, whatever you have to do, Will,” he had said, as though it were nothing.

“I _need_ you to understand, Jack,” he’d responded more desperately, grabbing the man’s arm, uneasy with how quickly Jack acquiesced and gave him free reign in this. “Lecter knows me too well. He has to believe I really am changing into what he wants me to be…which means, on some level, _I_ have to believe it too. It’s the only way this will work. He’ll know if I’m just playing him.”

Jack blinked slowly, confusion giving way to dawning comprehension as he grasped what Will was saying. How dangerously close to the chest they had to play this game in order to get it right.

“You’re the only person who knows what’s really going on, what I’m doing this for,” Will said. “I’m… _terrified_ a day may come when I mean that _very literally,”_ he’d said, letting out a nervous laugh that was anything but amused. “I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen. Keep me in check, Jack. _Be my anchor again.”_

“You don’t have to do this,” Jack said, concern and uncertainty peeling away the man on a mission for once to reveal the worried friend underneath. Will only smiled sadly at the untruth, and finally Jack had nodded, resigned, and said, “I understand, Will.” He grasped the younger man’s shoulders, looking him directly in the eye. “I _will_ be a better anchor to you. I’ll be there for you when you need someone to talk to, to help you get out of the darkness and out of his headspace for awhile. You are _not_ going to fall this time,” he promised.

Will clings to that thought, even as he cocks the hammer back on his pistol and points it at Clark Ingram’s face. It isn’t much help when Jack isn’t here, when no one is here but a man he despises and another he only wishes he could. It would make things so simple, even if it did ruin the illusion he’s aiming for of a man finally seduced by the darkness—by _Hannibal’s_ darkness specifically.

Truthfully, with the gun in his hand and the man caked in gore begging fearfully for his life, Will’s mind inconveniently chooses at that moment to remember the bullet lodged in Andrew Sykes’ heart instead, Matthew’s burnt and bloody valentine to him _—don’t think that name here—_ and he almost pulls the trigger right then. Until Hannibal stops him with a hand over the barrel, bringing him back to the present and sliding it easily out of his grasp.

All thoughts of Matthew, of Jack and Ingram and Peter Bernardone or anyone else, slide completely away when that hand comes to rest on the side of his face, and Hannibal whispers into the shell of his ear about caterpillars and chrysalises. Will understands in this moment that he is more than just a pretty plaything—that in this moment Lecter finds him _beautiful._

This is what he wants, though just now it’s hard to remember exactly why. All he knows is that Hannibal is proud of him, and that feeling makes him feel exultant and proud of himself as well.

It’s only later that he feels triumphant for a different reason and just a little afraid, reminding himself that this is all part of the game, part of the elaborate trap he’s set for the man with himself as the bait. This is Hannibal as Will has never seen him, scenting his victory in the air and practically salivating at the thought of it. Sure of his success, eagerly anticipating the fall of his prize into his open and waiting arms.

His arrogance is what will ultimately do him in. Will knows this as surely as he knows his own name, as he takes another swig of scotch in front of the fireplace, letting it loosen his limbs and warm his belly. _His pride._

The pride before the fall.

**Author's Note:**

> And now, dear readers, please stay tuned for the eighth and final installment of this series, a multi-chaptered fic titled _Freely They Stood and Fell._ Coming soon to a computer screen near you! ^_^


End file.
